1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a card clothing for the flats of a carding machine and including a plurality of wires provided each with a row of teeth and a foot, including further an elongated supporting member supporting the plurality of wires threaded thereupon, and including at least one locking member lockingly holding the plurality of wires in a prestressed state against each other.
Carding machines comprise generally a rotating cylindrical drum and flats which move adjacently and along of a section of the circumference of the drum. The flats move thereby in the direction of the rotation of the drum at a linear speed, which is much smaller than the circumferential speed of the drum, which itself rotates at a relatively high speed. A metal wire comprising teeth is wound tightly around the drum and forms the clothing thereof. Generally, two basic designs of the flats of carding machines are known. One design comprises a supporting member produced from a relatively soft material provided with a multitude of hooks set into the supporting member. The other design comprises a plurality of cast iron flats carrying a plurality of wire sections including teeth. These wire sections are of a design similar to the wire wound around the drum. The teeth of the metal wires wound around the drum and mounted on the flats disentangle, clean and parallelize the fibres located therebetween, shape these fibres to a fleece, which thereafter is condensed into a card sliver.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A large variety of designs of card clothing, consisting of cast iron flats having wire sections located thereupon, are known in the art. The German patent application DE-OS No. 2 145 459 discloses a design of a card clothing in which the wire sections are mounted by means of weldings or adhesive agents to their supporting members, which in turn are mounted to the flats. Such a welding and gluing entails a considerable expenditure of time and accordingly high manufacturing costs.